Dent removal

[gergstuff]

Hi,

I have a 1978 6 metre Minuet that has some dents in the aluminum panels above the rear bumper. I cannot see any way to access them from behind to try and pound them out without ripping apart the whole back end. Does anyone have any ideas? I would think a traditional slide hammer would wreak havoc on the soft aluminum panels trying to pull the dents from the outside.

I am open to suggestions.

Thanks,


Gergstuff

[n2916s]

You may be able to pull minur dents out with a toilet plunger -- I managed to get one more or less back where it belonged that way.

The problem is that aluminum has no "memory" and it stretches easily -- very hard to get the material back where it was.

mike

[JimGolden]

Tow it down to your local airport with a maintainence shop and get one of the airplane guys to look at it. A good shop will have some sheet metal guys that know aluminum. That'd be your best bet.

[Foiled Again]

Do the plunger trick, use smaller suction cups if needed (the kind window guys work with are great), then finish it off with bondo and PAINT ! You lucky dog!

Paula

[JimGolden]

Oh yeah, I forgot. Like Paula said. Argocy's have steel end caps

[gergstuff]

I tried the suction cup method but they did not have enough strength to pull out the dents. I will have to take a different approach.

Craig

[HiHoAgRV]

I found an industrial suction cup that was meant for automated lifting equipment. It has screw fitting in the center with a brass fitting where you hook a vacuum line. I have a small vacuum pump and rigged the setup so the pump would pull a vacuum on the plunger, then I pulled the hose and boing! out came the dent. This was on a SOB RV but the principle is the same.
It won't do anything for the creases...

[remcolent]

YouTube - Car Dent Removal with Hair Dryer and Compressed Air

anyone used this trick on an Airstream?

[Poprivet]

Originally Posted by gergstuff

Hi,

I have a 1978 6 metre Minuet that has some dents in the aluminum panels above the rear bumper. I cannot see any way to access them from behind to try and pound them out without ripping apart the whole back end. Does anyone have any ideas? I would think a traditional slide hammer would wreak havoc on the soft aluminum panels trying to pull the dents from the outside.

I am open to suggestions.

Thanks,


Gergstuff

I had a similar problem and I just capped over the dents.

[Lumatic]

For me a Ding King or Pops a Dent works better than suction cups

[gergstuff]

I watched the you tube video, interesting, not sure how well that would work on Aluminum. As someone had previously pointed out, Aluminum doesn't have the "memory" that sheet steel has.

I recall seeing the advertisements for the ding king and pops a dent, that might actually work, I will see if I can find one and give it a try.

Of course, I will advise as to the results (or lack thereof).

Thanks to all for the help.

Gerg

[gergstuff]

Looks like I forgot to advise how this went. I tried the Ding King and it works sort of. I made larger dents into smaller dents and really need to get back into the project but I got sidetracked with a bunch of other stuff. I also need to get more dent pulling discs as it is pretty time consuming to do one dent at a time due to the length of time needed to wait for the glue to set etc. Ultimately, I think it will do a decent job but will still be a little wrinkly. I hate to use filler but that is likely the only way I can smooth things out.

Craig